A GREAT LOSS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 50, 27 August 1937, Page 7

A GREAT LOSS

MINISTER'S TRIBUTE

A tribute to the memory of Dr. Ad*. Paterson was paid by the Minister of Health (the Hon. P. Fraser) last night. "The Health Department and indeed the health services of the Dominion," said Mr. Fraser, "have suffered a great loss by the death of Dr. Ada Paterson, Director of the School Hygiene Division. Her work as school medical officer from 1912 to 1923, and as Director of the Division from-the latter year, has been a fine and outstanding example of whole-hearted devotion to duty, of .efficiency in adminstration, of conscientiousness; and in. the .carrying, out of- her- many responsibilities, of broad-minded tolerance in her approach to difficult problems, and of friendly and cheerful co-operation with all with whom she was associated. - "She lived for her work arid for the children of the Dominion,'whose health was her special care. She was always planning and discussing plans for still further improving and extending the work of health preservation..among the children and young people. "The last official discussion 1 had With her and the' Director-General of Health (Dr. M. H. Watt) was on the question of physical education in our schools, the extension of which she was hoping to push forward: with enthusiasm. Dr. Paterson's work for the health camps will always be a monument to her memory. Her interests were not confined to her own particular sphere of preventive and curative medical work among the children, although that was in a very real sense her life's mission.. Her activities and help extended to every humanitarian cause and social service. * ' "During her visit to Britain and, Europe in 1935, she visited every institution from which she could learn something to assist New Zealand in the administration of its similar institutions; and she interviewed everybody from whom she could get information on important health and social questions to add to the knowledge available to us here. I am sure that every - one of my predecessors in office as Ministers of Health and Education, and all those who have been'associated with her many activities, will join with me in' paying a sincere tribute to the life.and work of one of New Zealand's greatest and noblest women."-